On New Years Eve I visited the Queenstown area for the day, Queenstown being a very scenic and busy tourist town and the arguably the adventure tourism capital of New Zealand. It’s also one of the places to be on New Years Eve and naturally the town was extremely busy! To escape the crowds we drove to the head of Lake Wakatipu and….
Christmas briefly came early for me! The lens that I had ordered as my Christmas present finally arrived yesterday, and I couldn’t resist a quick play before I put it away, just to check that it worked okay š The lens is a fabulous Sony/Zeiss sonnar 55mm f1.8 for my favouriteĀ little Sony A7 camera and after my quick session with it, I can say it’s a keeper. The sharpness and clarity are wonderful and it produces some beautiful bokeh. I’m looking forward to Christmas!
Thought it was time for some more roses to brighten up the blog pages. These are my old favourites Cecile Brunner which are looking particularly beautiful in the garden at the moment, I simply added an old open book et voila!
It’s that busy spring season here in southern NZĀ hence the lack of posts here on the blog (Paul has been busy too, slaving away over his scanner š ). And with it being spring, you’d have thought I’d be posting more photos of spring flowers and suchlike which are out in abundance at the moment but no, I decided to post a photo I took the other day for my bookcover portfolio. Taken with the macro lens, I added texture to add to the softness and mood.
I hope you’re all enjoying the new Pastel Painterly Textures as much as we are? I’m finding its textures particularly easy to use and not just for my usual flowers and still-lifes either, the pastels are working well on landscapes and beaches too!
It’s extraordinarily warm here in southern New Zealand today. It’s still technically winter and here we are wearing tee-shirts and sandals and with all the windows open….global warming or just a freakish weather pattern? It’s lovely but I’m sure winter will return shortly!
Now the photo, I have inherited much of the family photograph collection including the one peeking out of the book. Sam was my Grandmothers very handsome little brother and like many young New Zealand men of the time went off to what they thought was the “big adventure” of World War One. Ten percent of New Zealand’sĀ then populationĀ of 1 million fought in WW1 and of thoseĀ 18 000 died and 40 000 were wounded. Unfortunately Sam wasn’t among those who survived , he got injured in battle, wrote home to his mother saying he was fine, it was only a slight injury, but shortly after writing he succumbed to gangrene and is buried in France.
When I’m feeling a little uninspired photography-wise I tend to turn to subjects I love, if not flowers then books and I can never have enough books. These old beauties were taken with the macro lens, another of my favourite things! I love the different view of the world you get when you shoot macro, all those small details you miss at first glance.
These little jewels of fruit are growing on a small bush in my garden at the moment. They’re Chilean Guava (Myrtus Ugni),Ā marketedĀ here in New Zealand as New Zealand Cranberry. They’re delicious little berries tasting like a mix of strawberry, pineapple and apple, so a real fruit salad flavour. They grow well here in southern New Zealand, not minding the cold, the wet or the dry.
Our apologies for the lack of posts here recently, we’ve both been on holiday but normal services have resumed so with luck you should see a bit more activity here on the blog.
I’m still processing the photos I took while on lovely whistle-stop visit to New Zealand’s North Island and haven’t textured any as yet, so in the meantime it’s back to flowers (my easy option!)